snark: a (well-deserved) attitude of mocking irreverence and sarcasm

July 24, 2018

Last night the Salem City Council, meeting as the Urban Renewal Agency board, failed to ask the right questions about a massive cost overrun on the not-yet-built new police facility.

This failure was across the board. Council progressives didn't ask the right questions. Neither did the council conservatives. The Mayor didn't ask the right questions. And City of Salem staff sure didn't either.

So I'm going to present some key questions that went unasked.

What bothered me the most about the approval of $2 million in urban renewal funds to fill a hole in the police facility budget wasn't so much the decision itself, but the failure of the Mayor and city councilors to fulfill their role as careful overseers of public funds.

Watching the proceedings via the CCTV feed from home, I couldn't believe that the slide presentation by a City staff person didn't set off alarm bells that should have led to these questions being asked.

(1) How is it that the construction budget for the police facility jumped 36% in just 18 months? As shown in the screenshot above, when the City Council decided in February 2017 to have a $61.8 million bond measure put on the May 2017 ballot, the construction budget for a 115,000 square foot facility was $42,233,000.

But last night City staff said that the current "Actual Construction" cost for a 115,000 square foot building is $57,448,331. Again, that's a 36% jump between February 2017 and July 2018.

UPDATE: Beaverton voters approved building a $35 million Public Safety building shortly before Salem's police facility was approved. In May 2018 a newspaper story reported that costs for the Beaverton facility have increased 17% over the past 18 months. That's about half of the jump in Salem's cost.

Further update: However, I just realized that the figure for Beaverton was an overall cost figure, not just construction costs. So the comparable percentage increase for the Salem police facility is 23% (adding soft costs to construction costs). This makes the overall Salem police facility cost increase close to the Beaverton increase, though it doesn't answer the questions below.

(2) Why is the 36% jump in construction costs so much more than inflation over the past 18 months? City staff presented several estimates of recent construction cost inflation. The image below was a small part of a larger slide, hence its fuzziness. My reading of the chart is that construction cost inflation has been about 10% since 2017, which is way less than 36%.

(As noted on the chart, the 2017 cost index is 100, and the latest value shown is about 110.)

City staff also showed the following slide, which says that construction cost inflation has been about 6% a year recently. Over 18 months, that would make cost inflation around 9%, which also is a heck of a lot less than the 36% increase in the police facility construction cost over the last year and a half.

Now, there might be good reasons why the Salem police facility construction costs rose 36% when general construction costs apparently rose 9-10% over the same 18-month period. But since the Mayor and city councilors chose not to ask City staff about this, I'm worried that the public won't have an answer to an important question.

(3) Why wasn't there a mention of the estimated $9.1 million earmarked for construction cost increases and contingencies? I talked about this money in a previous post.

It's perplexing that City staff didn't mention it when they were describing what was in the "soft costs" part of the police facility budget. Various items were mentioned, but not the line items for cost escalation and unforeseen contingencies.

As shown above, the "soft costs" remain at $18,581,000, while the new construction budget has become $49,857,530 after $7,591,041 in cost reductions were found in the $57,448,331 current construction cost budget.

Most of the cost reductions came from reducing the size of the police facility from 115,000 square feet to 104,000 square feet, and eliminating a bunch of spaces in the structured parking.

The construction cost per square foot has risen from $367 in the early 2017 plan, to $479 in the current mid-2018 plan.

That's a 31% increase in the cost per square foot, which is close to the 36% increase in the construction costs for a 115,000 square foot police facility with the original amount of structured parking.

This indicates that while police facility planners may have found some construction efficiencies, these weren't major, or the construction cost per square foot wouldn't have risen by 31%.

Here's the bottom line for the police facility, based on what happened at last night's Urban Renewal meeting:

-- The size of the building now is 9.6% smaller than the 115,000 square foot plan approved by voters in May 2017.-- The construction cost has risen 18%, even though the building is about 10% smaller. -- The construction cost per square foot has risen 31%.-- The construction cost for a 115,000 square foot building rose 36%.

As I said at the start, questions should have been raised about the discrepancy between general construction costs appearing to rise about 10% over the past 18 months, while the police facility costs rose over three times as much.

I recall that Urban Development Director Kristin Retherford said that she's heard reports of construction costs increasing 1% a month recently. OK, even if we generously assume that rapid rate of increase occurred over the entire 18 months between February 2017 and now, that's still just an approximate 18% jump in construction costs.

Yet the Salem police facility experienced a 36% increase. The question "Why?" deserves an answer. I didn't hear even that question being asked last night, much less the answer.

Everyone makes mistakes. Someone appears to have made a big mistake in estimating the cost of the police facility plan that was submitted to voters in May 2017. A 9.2% cost escalation rate was used in that plan, which seems to be quite close to the actual rate of construction cost inflation.

Yet City officials have had to scramble to cobble together enough money to pay for a police facility that is 10% smaller than what voters approved. And now the total budget is $70,179,175 rather than $61,814,000, a 14% increase to get 10% less of a police facility.

It sure feels like something went wrong here. But that wasn't evident from the lack of critical questions from the Mayor and city councilors last night. Hopefully those questions will be asked and answered in the days ahead.

As noted above, in the $63.9 million plan 9.18% was budgeted for escalation, meaning construction inflation. This totaled $4,503,000. There also was a 9% contingency line item of $4,907,000.

So $9,410,000 was set aside for construction cost increases and unforeseen contingencies. It sure seems this should have been enough, so why are City officals asking for $2 million on top of the $9,410,000?

(Note: in my blog post I observed that if the escalation and contingency budgets were reduced proportionately when the police facility budget went from $63.9 million to $61.8 million, this still would leave $9.1 million in those line items.)

Now Salem Community Vision also is questioning using $2 million in urban renewal funds for the police facility. A Facebook post says this money should go toward public access to a greenway path at the far end of the (vast) police facility parking area shown in grey below.

Here's excerpts from the Salem Community Vision post. (I'm a member of the SCV steering committee, but had nothing to do with the post.)

POLICE STATION ... It's getting worse! Today the City released the newest site plan of the police facility for public comments during this next week on the current "Site Plan Review" phase. It is alarming to see the public walkway along the creek has suddenly disappeared.

It shows up faintly as a "future" walkway. Well, we voted for $62 million to build a police station AND we want public access. The recent proposal to use Urban Renewal "downtown revitalization" funds to build the public lobby has been widely criticized. Those funds are for exactly what they say, "revitalization", not for building public buildings.

...It's time for a public outcry. An opportunity for this is next Wednesday evening 6.00 to 7.30 at South Salem High School when the plans will be on display, and staff will be there to hear your comments.

Let's fill in the comments forms and tell them what we think. Or email your councilors at [email protected]t. Let's tell them we want urban renewal "downtown revitalization" funds to be used for the walkway and landscaping and not for the public building construction.

Alternatively email City Planning with your comments, by the end of next week (July 27th) to [email protected].

Combining the good ideas of Salem Community Vision with my own perspective, here's three reasons the City Council should think twice about using $2 million in urban renewal funds to pay for a cost overrun on the police facility construction budget.

(1) A Community Room already was part of the police facility plan. As noted in my blog post, City of Salem staff are claiming that the $2 million will pay for a Community Room and associated restrooms that have been requested by members of the public.

This can't be true, because a Community Room was mentioned in the Voter Pamphlet statement describing the $61.8 million bond measure approved by voters in May 2017. I have no idea why City staff are wrongly claiming that the $2 million would go to a police facility "add-on," when the $61.8 million budget must have included money for a Community Room.

(2) Urban renewal funds should be used for a broad public purpose, not as a "slush fund" to deal with police facility cost overruns. There's been a disturbing trend in downtown urban renewal funds being used for purposes outside of their original intent.

I've heard credible stories of how City officials defer maintenance on downtown parking garages, then use urban renewal money for, say, replacement of elevators that could have had a longer life if they'd been maintained properly. There also was a disturbing lack of oversight on $749,000 in urban renewal funds that was handed out to T.J. Sullivan's Park Front building for no good reason.

(The Adobe Spark web page I made, which is featured in the preceding link, has been viewed 6,645 times, so this shows that a lot of people in Salem are interested in how urban renewal funds are used, or in this case, misused.)

So the City Council, which also acts as the board for the Urban Renewal Agency, needs to crack down on misuse of money that should go toward revitalizing downtown, rather than other extraneous uses.

(3) Using $2 million in urban renewal funds for a creekside path does make sense. Given that there's apparently at least $9.1 million for cost escalation and contingencies, the City Council should demand that the police facility be built within the $61.8 million dollar budget approved by voters -- which, as already noted, must have included money for a Community Room and associated public restrooms.

But I agree with Salem Community Vision that using $2 million, or thereabouts, to fund construction of a path along Mill Creek would be a good use of urban renewal funds, because the path would help to revitalize the north downtown area. Salem doesn't make as much use of urban waterways as it could. This would be a step in the right direction.

The map above shows a "future path location." Let's make the future now.

But there already was $4.5 million in the police facility budget earmarked for 9.2% worth of cost escalation due to construction inflation. So the additional money being requested seems to show that cost overruns are the problem, not an increase in construction costs, which appear to have risen less than 10% since the bond measure was passed.

Above is a chart I shared in a February 2017 blog post that shows cost figures for the $63.9 million police facility plan, which the City Council reduced to $61.8 million. (The chart also shows an alternative plan proposed by Salem Community Vision.)

As noted above, in the $63.9 million plan 9.18% was budgeted for escalation, meaning construction inflation. This totaled $4,503,000. There also was a 9% contingency line item of $4,907,000.

So $9,410,000 was set aside for construction cost increases and unforeseen contingencies. It sure seems this should have been enough, so why are City officals asking for $2 million on top of the $9,410,000?

I don't have the $61.8 million budget. That's 3.3% less than the original $63.9 million budget. If the escalation and contingency line items were reduced proportionately, there still would be $9.1 million set aside for construction inflation and unforeseen expenses.

So again, why ask for $2 million more?

Members of the City Council need to dig into the rationale being given for the $2 million request. The Statesman Journal story says, somewhat confusingly, since this is at odds with the headline:

As city officials try to make the place more useful to locals, the largest chunk of the July request — $1,197,000 — is poised to pay for a big community room at the station. Other expenses include public restrooms ($398,000), a plaza ($250,000) and artwork ($240,000), bringing the grand total to $2.085 million.

But the description of Measure 24-420, the $61.8 million bond measure, in the May 2017 Voter Pamphlet says that a "community meeting space" was already included in the budget.

So since a community room already was in the budget, seemingly with associated restrooms, let's go back to construction cost inflation as the reason for the police facility cost overrun.

The chart above shows the three line items, A, B, C, that constitute construction costs: Building construction, parking structure construction, and site and demolition construction. In the original $63.9 million budget, these items totaled $40,021,000. If those line items were reduced proportionately, they would have totaled $38,700,000 in the $61.8 million budget.

I can't help observing that I and others who were opposed to an overpriced and overlarge police facility argued that about 100,000 square feet would be plenty. City officials argued, "No, experts say we need at least 115,000 square feet!"

"Taking increasing costs into consideration, the size of the police facility is also being slimmed down from about 115,000 square feet to about 104,000 square feet, without major program sacrifices, Dannen said."

It's good to see that City officials have realized that the Police Department can be fine with a 104,000 square foot building. However, I agree with the Statesman Journal editorial board that using $2 million in urban renewal funds to fill a supposed budget gap isn't a wise idea.

Urban renewal dollars are taxpayer-funded dollars. Voters didn't approve the bond measure with a caveat that it was OK to take an additional couple million from the URA fund.

It should bother residents that if the Urban Renewal Agency Board approves the additional $2 million, there will be fewer funds for other riverfront projects. The Riverfront-Downtown area has about a $4 million budget.

Isn't that money supposed to be used for street improvements, and loans and grants for others who want to improve their land or buildings and rid areas of blight?

Using $2 million of Urban Renewal funds for cost overruns on a police facility doesn't remove blight, improve property values, or leverage private investment. It just bails the City of Salem out of a failure to budget properly for police facility construction.

Still, the City should consider further cutting the structured parking and using nearby surface lots or the Marion Parkade. At $25,000 to $50,000 a stall, there's a good amount of savings there for space and structure that just sits with car storage.

The Statesman Journal story says that City officials already are planning to reduce the number of structured parking spaces from 100 to 70.

Here's an idea: reduce them to zero.

The budget above shows that 100 stalls were estimated to cost $2,645,000, or $26,450 per stall. So eliminating the 70 planned structured parking spaces would save about $1,850,000, eliminating the need to use $2 million in urban renewal funds.

My understanding is that there's enough room on the site for surface parking. The main rationale I heard for structured parking was that officers going on patrol could exit directly from the second floor of the police facility to their cars, thereby eliminating the need to haul a heavy "duty bag" downstairs (and upstairs, on a return trip).

Is this enough reason to take $2 million from urban renewal funds? The City Council will have to decide. I'm with the Breakfast on Bikes blogger in saying, no.

May 17, 2017

This is a good time to recollect how citizen activism led by Salem Community Vision (and Salem Can Do Better, an offshoot formed to oppose the first-try bond measure) prevented bad police facility ideas from being implemented -- which made possible the better plan approved by voters.

Here's the "headlines" of eight citizen activism accomplishments.

Stopping a police facility from being built at the Civic CenterStopping the Library from being converted to a police facilityStopping the idea of building a police facility anywhere at the Civic CenterStopping the City of Salem from taking over the block south of the Library for a police facilitySalem Community Vision urging NO vote on $82 million police facility bondVoters rejecting Measure 24-399, the $82 million bond measureCity Council reducing second-try police facility plan by $20 million and 33,000 square feetCity of Salem putting seismic retrofitting of the Library on November 2017 ballot

Scroll down for descriptions of what each accomplishment entailed, and a blog post link (or City of Salem page, for #8) giving more details. The italicized section is an excerpt from the link.

(1) Stopping a police facility from being built at the Civic CenterCity officials wanted to build the police facility next to, and over, Mirror Pond at the Civic Center, complete with very expensive underground parking. Salem Community Vision opposed this plan, noting that the Civic Center site was chosen with no public involvement.

The City of Salem decided to build a new police facility at the Civic Center without any public hearings or public discussion. City staff and the Mayor made this decision.

All the more reason to rectify this lack of public involvement now. Before moving ahead with further planning for a new police facility at the Civic Center, City of Salem officials should form a broad-based task force to evaluate alternative potential locations.

(2) Stopping the Library from being converted to a police facilityAfter the plan to build a police facility at the north end of the Civic Center adjacent to Mirror Pond crashed and burned due to community opposition, City officials came up with the decidedly crazy notion of converting the Library to a police facility. The Library would go somewhere else, maybe the ground floor of the Marion Parkade.

The City of Salem is seriously considering converting the Public Library at the Civic Center into a police facility. The library would be moved to some other location in the downtown area.

...I'd figured that the City Council would lean toward an alternative to the original $80 million plan to build a new police facility with underground parking adjacent to the current Mirror Pond. Which would become Mirror Drainage Swale after a 75,000 square foot police facility building was constructed near and over it.

But converting the 90,000 square foot Salem Public Library to a police facility... that notion had surfaced in several settings, yet seemed too far-out and controversial to be a viable alternative to the plan that the City has been promoting since last fall.

(3) Stopping the idea of building a police facility anywhere at the Civic CenterJust as Salem Community Vision had recommended in March 2014, Mayor Peterson appointed a Blue Ribbon Task Force on the Police Facility in an attempt to get the faltering project back on track. Peterson still had dreams of building a police facility at the Civic Center, but citizens spoke up at the Task Force chaired by T.J. Sullivan and said "No way."

When I walked in about 7:30 pm, it didn't take long for me to realize that the $80 million "Police Palace" proposal that the Mayor and City Manager had been pushing on a deeply skeptical citizenry was in trouble.

Mayor Peterson, who usually does her best to project an aura of calm benevolence at City Council meetings, had her fussy-face on. She wasn't saying much, but her irritated expression spoke for her. Sullivan was doing his best to preserve a Civic Center police facility as a viable option, but he was floundering.

(4) Stopping the City of Salem from taking over the block south of the Library for a police facilityProving that bad ideas die a slow death, City officials and their hired consultants came up with the not-so-bright idea of condemning the entire "Leslie block" south of the Library and using it for a close-to-the-Civic-Center police facility. But after getting an earful from people who lived on that block or owned businesses there, this idea met a well-deserved demise.

This is the clear message of the many people who are testifying at tonight's Salem City Council public hearing on a new police facility. Great turnout. Lots of impassioned testimony.

People who live and work at the block south of the Library (Leslie block) don't want to lose their homes and livelihood. Listening to them, I kept thinking, "Why didn't City staff and the DLR Group consultants see this coming?"

So far, nobody, repeat NOBODY, is in favor of demolishing the Leslie block for a giant police facility. But this was one of two site possibilities a City Council subcommittee came up with after hearing from the DLR Group consultants.

(5) Salem Community Vision urging NO vote on $82 million police facility bondKnowing that Salem's citizens didn't like the over-sized and over-priced 148,000 square feet, $82 million police facility plan presented to voters in the November 2016 election, every member of the Salem Community Vision steering committee signed on to a voter's pamphlet statement urging a NO vote on the bond measure.

This argument is signed by every member of the Salem Community Vision steering committee. Salem Community Vision has been closely following the police facility planning saga since the fall of 2013, three years.

Unfortunately, City officials have gone along with the "supersized" $82 million, 148,000 square foot Police Palace plan that some Chicago consultants came up with after a local task force appointed by the Mayor recommended a 75,000 - 106,000 square foot building.

(6) Voters rejecting Measure 24-399, the $82 million bond measureIn the November election the first-try police facility plan was rejected by voters, 52% to 48%. The NO campaign was outspent about 50:1, yet people power prevailed over money power.

Keep Salem Safe had lots of big name endorsements, lawn signs, a direct mailing to Salem households, a Statesman Journal editorial urging a "yes" vote on Measure 24-399, Chamber of Commerce backing -- everything that traditionally led to a political win in this town.

Except this time it didn't.

The times are a'changing. People are a lot more skeptical of the Power Structure, whether at the national, state, or local level. Their votes aren't a given anymore if certain political buttons are pushed

On the whole, this is a good thing. In a democracy people-power should outweigh money-power. Let's have more of it in Salem.

(7) City Council reducing second-try police facility plan by $20 million and 33,000 square feetForced into a Plan B for the police facility after the defeat of Measure 24-399, City officials came up with a $61.8 million, 115,000 square foot proposal. So citizen activism saved taxpayers about $35 million in total, including bond financing costs, given the $20 million reduction in the cost of the police facility. Unfortunately, seismic retrofitting of the Library wasn't included in the second-try bond measure, even though there was a lot of support for this.

On a personal note I found it really satisfying to hear everybody talking about how to reduce the cost and size of the previous $82 million, 148,000 square foot police facility plan that was rejected by voters last November when Measure 24-399 failed.

Having led the fight against the ballot measure, yet recognizing that Salem needs a new police facility, just not the one that was previously proposed, it was deeply heartening to hear the Mayor, City Manager, city councilors, police chief, architectural consultants, City staff, and others agreeing that our community needs to find a PLAN B now that PLAN A was voted down.

...Judging from the tone of what Mayor Bennett and city councilors said tonight, my bet is that the City Council will end up going with some version of the 115,000 square foot police facility plus the Library seismic upgrades plan. But I could be wrong.

(8) City of Salem putting seismic retrofitting of the Library on November 2017 ballotSalem Community Vision has been strongly urging that City officials make both City Hall and the Library earthquake-safe for the people who work at or visit the Civic Center. It doesn't make sense to move the Police Department out of City Hall into a seismically-sound new building, while leaving that building and the Library unsafe when the Big One earthquake hits, a matter of when, not if. So this is a big accomplishment: getting a $15 million Library bond measure on the November ballot.

I also want to ensure residents that it is the intention of Council and the City to put a bond on the November ballot that will fund seismic retrofitting of the City Library. As with the police bond, the City will conduct a transparent public information campaign for the Library bond. This way residents will feel confident they have a firm understanding of the facts when they fill out their ballot.

April 28, 2017

If you like political underdogs, you should love the Salem Can Do Better campaign I'm leading against the second-try $62 million police facility bond, Measure 24-420 on the May ballot.

I just checked. The YES campaign being run by Friends of Salem Police has raised $114,750. The Salem Can Do Better NO campaign has raised $2,200.

That's a 52 to 1 difference.

Which doesn't bother me at all. Last year's first-try $82 million police facility bond measure was turned down by voters in the November election even though Salem Can Do Better also was outspent by a lot, about 30 to 1 if I recall correctly.

If the cost of the overly expensive Salem police facility is reduced to the price per square foot that a new Beaverton police facility is costing, the 26% reduction saves $14.6 million -- which is almost exactly the $15.3 million cost of making the Library earthquake-safe and making other needed repairs/renovations to the Library.

Citizens urged City officials to include that $15.3 million for the Library in a May police facility bond measure, but this option was rejected by the City Council on a 4-4 tie vote.

So now voters have a chance to do what should have been done before: a NO vote on Measure 24-420 will make it possible to reduce the excessive cost of the police facility, which means Salem can have both a new police facility AND an earthquake-safe Library for just a bit more than the $61.8 million taxpayers are being asked to fork out for just a police facility now.

Here's the new web page. Take a look at how a better YES can result from a NO.

Yesterday I also had a half-hour interview with Ken Adams that will be shown on his City Beat show on CCTV. Ken just gave me the airtimes on Channel 21. In the interview I described the reasons to vote NO on Measure 24-420, and we talked about other subjects relating to the police facility bond.

4/28/2017 at 5:30 PM4/29/2017 at 12:30 PM5/1/2017 at 9:00 AM5/3/2017 at 5:30 PM5/5/2017 at 9:00 PM5/8/2017 at 10:00 AM5/9/2017 at 8:00 AM5/10/2017 at 5:00 PM5/11/2017 at 1:00 PM5/13/2017 at 7:00 PM

The interview should be available on You Tube fairly soon. When it is, I'll share it on social media for the benefit of those who don't get CCTV, or want to view the interview at a time of their choosing.

I got my May election ballot today.

People will be voting by mail or drop-off between now and election day, Tuesday, May 16. Naturally I have no idea how the vote on Measure 24-420 will go, or how any other vote will go. Hopefully citizens will do their best to educate themselves about the candidates and issues, then cast an informed vote.

My goal is to help with this informing: to present arguments for voting NO on the $61.8 million police facility bond measure, just as proponents of the measure are presenting YES arguments.

Democracy in action.

When I speak to a group about Measure 24-420, I like to say that every election -- whether for a candidate or for an issue -- benefits from having two sides presented to voters. Sure, sometimes a candidate for some office is unopposed, and sometimes an issue doesn't have an active opposing (or supporting) campaign.

Usually though, democracy benefits from a vigorous debate/discussion about the pros and cons of voting this way or that way. There always are decent reasons to vote YES or NO, FOR or AGAINST.

I'm presenting the arguments to vote NO on Measure 24-420. The other side is presenting arguments to vote YES. Whatever happens on May 16, it will be a more informed vote this way.

April 05, 2017

Here's another reason to vote against Measure 24-420, the second-try $62 million police facility bond measure on the May 2017 ballot:

Building a police facility in the north downtown area (on the old DeLon/O'Brien auto dealership site) goes against longstanding plans for how this area should be developed.

Salem Can Do Better lays out four other good reasons to vote NO, but this is a fairly fresh idea that just came to light for me.

I've heard criticisms of putting a large 115,000 square foot tax-exempt police facility on a prime piece of downtown land. But until someone mailed me several documents that explain why this is a bad idea, I wasn't informed enough to seriously question the wisdom of choosing the north downtown site.

Here's PDF files of what I got. My anonymous correspondent highlighted portions of the documents in dark yellow. I added some highlighting in lighter yellow. So you can scan through the documents and just read the "good parts" if you like.

Here's an excerpt from what my correspondent said about the $62 million second-try police facility plan:

A new Police Facility is clearly needed by the City of Salem, but it needs to be accomplished in the most cost effective manner to minimize the financial impact (increased taxes) on the citizens and businesses in the Community.

...The Delon parcel is the only remaining large block of property remaining for expansion of Commercial/Retail development in downtown Salem.

The Delon parcel is designated as an Urban Renewal area so funds are available to encourage the development of more private sector jobs and subsequent property tax revenue for the city. Use of Urban Renewal funds to build a Government building or its associated infrastructure is not the appropriate use of these funds.

Development of this property by the private sector will generate many ongoing private sector jobs and an estimated $500,000 to $750,000 in new annual property tax revenue. When used for a Police Facility the property is taken off the tax rolls forever with no growth of new private sector jobs and the corresponding tax revenue.

And here's some excerpts from the City of Salem North Downtown Plan that was approved in 2000. As you can read below, the plan calls for tax-paying commercial and residential development that is much different than the tax-exempt police facility that now is planned for the 3+ acre site.

The downtown core area, as a major employment center, represents a source of potential North Downtown area residents that want to live near their workplace. The North Downtown area represents an opportunity to provide housing in central Salem that will support core area shops, restaurants, and businesses.

At the same time, the area also represents a potential expansion area for the downtown given that the core area is constrained by the Civic Center to the south, the Capitol Mall to the east, and the Willamette River to the west.

...The overall character of the North Downtown area is expected to change significantly over time. The vision for the area is a series of mixed-use districts offering a variety of employment, retail, and residential uses, including a range of low, medium, and high density housing.

...Redevelopment of the area will be driven by private investment as a result of growth in the region and rising property values.

...Approximately 18 acres of land in the middle of the North Downtown area is held in two ownerships, DeLon and Larmer. These properties provide opportunities for commercial (office and retail) development as well as high density housing uses.

The site is in a critical area as a transition area between the Broadway District, the North Core Area, and the Riverfront District. Mill Creek is an amenity and can serve as a pedestrian linkage between the riverfront and the Capitol Mall.

Yet if the $62 million police facility bond measure is approved in the May election, a large portion of the North Core area will become a 115,000 square foot tax-exempt public building with large parking areas that features, obviously, no commercial, retail, or residential uses.

I can see why the person who wrote to me is so opposed to putting a police facility on the old O'Brien Auto Group site. The City of Salem planned for this to be a mixed-use area with retail shops and a variety of residential options that would blend nicely with the core of downtown.

So if Measure 24-420 is rejected by voters, as I'm urging that it should be, one reason to vote NO is to provide an opportunity for citizens and City officials to reconsider the wisdom of building a new police facility on the proposed North Downtown site.

March 22, 2017

Today I updated the Salem Can Do Better web page to reflect our new campaign: urging a NO vote on the $62 million police facility bond measure on the May ballot.

Because even though the rejection of last November's hugely overpriced $82 million bond measure forced City officials to reduce the size and cost of the proposed police facility -- a win for Salem citizens -- the $62 million second-try bond still suffers from some major flaws:

Notably, (1) an excessively high cost per square foot, and (2) a continued failure to realize that saving the lives of everybody at City Hall and the Library when the Big One earthquake hits is just as important as saving the lives of Police Department employees.

Click on the image below to peruse the four good reasons why Salem Can Do Better is opposing this second-try attempt at funding a new police facility.

There's lots of good information on this web page, including several videos. Here's some additional FAQ's, Frequently Asked Questions that I either get quite often, or that I'm pretty sure are in the minds of people who favor Measure 24-420.

Why do you hate the Salem Police Department?I don't. Not at all.

In fact, I have nothing bad to say about the Department, which is ably run by Chief Jerry Moore, who I like a lot. My problem isn't with the Police Department. It is with City officials who have now proposed two plans for a new police facility that aren't worthy of being approved by voters.

Do you agree that a new Police Facility is needed?Yes.

During last year's campaign for the first-try police facility bond, Mayor-elect Bennett and I would present "pro" and "con" arguments at neighborhood association meetings. After Bennett would present the reasons why the current Police Department space in City Hall is woefully inadequate, I'd say "I agree with what Mayor-elect Bennett just said. But you still should vote NO on the bond measure."

City officials plan to put a bond for Library seismic improvements on the November ballot. Isn't this good enough for you?No.

As the Salem Can Do Better web page points out, there's an urgent need to make both the Library and City Hall earthquake-safe. There's no reason to force citizens to choose between Police and Library when it comes to saving lives. I and others showed City officials how easy it would be to reduce enough unnecessary costs in the second-try police facility budget to pay for the cost of seismically retrofitting the Library.

Instead, their attitude was, "What's the big deal of waiting six months for another election?"

Well, the big deal is that splitting Library seismic retrofits from building a new earthquake-safe police facility sends the message that saving the lives of Library employees and visitors (including children) is less important than saving the lives of Police Department staff. Further, it is very likely that the Salem-Keizer school district will have a large bond measure on the November ballot.

Thus voters need to reject this second-try bond measure.

Then a third-try can be voted on that does what should have done on the first- and second- tries: reduce the development cost per square foot to the cost other police facilities in Oregon have been built for recently, and make seismic retrofitting of at least the Library (ideally, City Hall also) part of a unified Public Safety bond.

Since you live outside of the city limits, why are you leading the fight against the police facility bond?Because I care about Salem.

I've had a Salem address for 40 years, having moved here in 1977. For 13 years I lived in the city limits when my daughter was going to Salem elementary, middle, and high schools. During high school, when she and her friends said they were going to the Library to study, sometimes they actually did. At the time I didn't know that the Library would collapse when the next major earthquake hits, a matter of when, not if.

Now, I do.

Even though I've lived about five miles outside of town for 27 years, Salem continues to be my home in every way other than living in the city limits. My daughter now lives in Orange County, California, which also is earthquake country. If my ten-year-old granddaughter is spending time in buildings that aren't earthquake-safe, I hope that someone down there is pushing to have those buildings seismically retrofitted.

Which is what I'm doing here in Salem.

It deeply bothers me that City officials have known for a long time that the Library and City Hall are going to collapse when the Big One hits, yet haven't yet seismically strengthened these buildings.

When they put off seismic retrofitting of the Library once again, even though several citizen groups urged them to put a combined Library Seismic + Police Facility bond before voters this May, I knew that I couldn't live with myself unless I opposed this second-try bond measure.

So I would have much preferred to say Yes to the second-try $62 million City of Salem police facility plan than No.

But I can't do this.

Because I wouldn't be able to live with myself, and I'm not aware of any way to move out of my own mind.

I led the fight against Measure 24-399, the first-try $82 million plan that was defeated by voters last November. So it made sense that a Statesman Journal story in today's paper, "New Salem police facility price shaves about $20 million from previous ballot measure," would mention me briefly.

Councilors on Tuesday discussed pushing seismic upgrades for the Salem Public Library to a November vote.

“I hope ... there's a real understanding that no matter what happens with the police facility, the library is going out in November," Mayor Chuck Bennett said.

The move triggered backlash from local blogger Brian Hines, who was among those against last year's ballot measure.

"There will be organized opposition to the second-try bond measure," Hines said.

Though the correct implication here is that the organized opposition by me and other supporters of Salem Can Do Better is related to seismic upgrades for the Library, I want to lay out much more fully the reasons I'm opposed to the new $62 million police facility plan -- which, once again, omits funding for lifesaving seismic upgrades to the Library and City Hall.

Yes, this plan is improved from the first try.

Less expensive: $62 million rather than $82 millionSmaller: probably about 115,000 square feet rather than 148,000 square feetBut as I'll explain below, improved doesn't mean good enough to deserve a Yes vote.

Here's the main reasons why.

(1) The lives of people who work at or visit City Hall and the Library are still getting second-class treatment. Over and over during the campaign against Measure 24-399 I'd say, "If it is important to save the lives of Police Department staff when the Big One earthquake hits by moving them into a seismically-sound building, it is equally important to save the lives of everyone who works at or visits City Hall and the Library, including children at StoryTime."

I'd use an image such as this to illustrate what I meant.

City Hall and the Library are going to collapse when the next massive Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake hits, which could be at any time.

Up until 2015 City officials planned to include seismic retrofitting of City Hall, and probably also the Library, in the budget for a new police facility. This made sense, since the Police Department currently is on the ground floor of City Hall, and the plan is to move other City employees into that same unsafe space after police employees move out.

But the new $62 million plan makes the same mistake the $82 million plan did: it calls for saving the lives of Police Department staff without asking at the same time for money to seismically retrofit the Library and City Hall. This is wrong. I argued against this in the fight against Measure 24-399, and I'll also argue against it in a campaign against the second-try bond measure.

Here's a video I made last year about the earthquake issue. It explains why I feel so strongly that continuing to postpone seismic upgrades for the Library, especially, is so wrong-headed.

(2) Citizens agree that making the Library and City Hall earthquake-safe should be part of a new police facility bond measure. If I was the only one deeply bothered by the prospect of children and other people being crushed to death at the Civic Center when the next Big One earthquake hits, I wouldn't have fought so strongly for seismic upgrades to these buildings being part of a second-try May bond measure.

But there's plenty of evidence that lots of others feel like I do.

Thus I consider that I have a duty to stand with them in opposition to the City's new $62 million police facility plan, since just as Measure 24-399 did, it omits money for lifesaving seismic upgrades to the Library and City Hall.

Here's a video of my testimony at last Tuesday's City Council work session where I presented evidence about the importance Salem citizens put on seeking funds to make these buildings earthquake-safe at the same time voters are asked to approve a police facility PLAN B.

This is the first slide that I showed. It presents the results of an online survey that I put up on behalf of Salem Community Vision that got almost 400 responses in a short time.

Two-thirds, 66%, of those who responded to the question of which police facility option they liked the most favored a plan that included seismic upgrades to City Hall and/or the Library. So much so, even a City of Salem $79 million plan for a new police facility and renovations to the Library that included seismic upgrades was preferred over two standalone police facility plans that cost much less.

Further, at the work session three city councilors spoke about how their constituents wanted these seismic upgrades to be part of a second-try police facility bond measure. Yet at the end of the video (see below) I made of their remarks, Mayor Bennett dismissively says that he doesn't believe making the Library and City Hall earthquake-safe was a concern of voters.

Which makes me wonder what sort of a bubble he is living in. Pretty clearly, one that doesn't allow the voices of ordinary people in our community to be heard.

(3) Four city council conservatives blocked an attempt by the four progressive councilors to consider a police facility plan that included seismic retrofitting of the Library. I don't like how divisive politics in our country has become. But this is a fact of life. It just is especially disturbing when good ideas get squashed at our local level on a party-line basis.

Such happened at last Tuesday's City Council work session when a motion to include seismic retrofitting of the Library as part of a 115,000 square foot police facility plan failed on a 4-4 vote (one council seat is vacant until a special election is held in March to replace Daniel Benjamin, who resigned last year).

This screenshot of the CCTV video of the work session shows the progressive councilors -- Matt Ausec, Sally Cook, Cara Kaser, Tom Andersen -- raising their hands in support of that motion. The council conservatives -- Jim Lewis, Steve McCoid, Brad Nanke, Chuck Bennett -- said NO to the Council even considering asking voters for money to make the Library and City Hall earthquake-safe in a May police facility bond measure election.

Last night the four conservative members of the City Council -- Mayor Bennett and councilors McCoid, Nanke, and Lewis -- blocked a motion supported by the four progressive members -- Andersen, Kaser, Cook, Ausec -- to ask for money to make the Library earthquake-safe in a May bond measure that also would include funds for a new police facility.

The clips in this video [see above] I made of the council work session show how out-of-touch Mayor Bennett is with community opinion about saving the lives of EVERYBODY at City Hall and the Library when the Big One earthquake hits, not just the lives of Police Department staff (who would move to a seismically-sound building if the bond measure passes this time; Measure 24-399 failed last November).

Sadly, after the conservatives blocked an excellent proposal to broaden appeal for the new bond measure by including money for seismic retrofitting of the Library as most people in this town clearly want (I'll demonstrate this soon in a blog post), the City Council decided to move ahead with a plan for only a $62 million police facility.

I and others had urged them to make the Library earthquake-safe for just $10 million more so children and other people won't be crushed to death in the next Cascadia Subduction Zone quake. But the conservatives rejected this common sense idea, worrying more about how out-of-state municipal bond investors might view a measure that included money for both a new police facility and seismic retrofitting of the Library.

(An unwarranted worry, according to testimony by City of Salem financial staff, but facts don't matter much to some city councilors.)

Which shows how-out-of-touch with both reality and Salem's citizens the right-wingers on the City Council are. I'm urging a NO vote on the May bond measure because, once again, Salem can do better than the plan that will be put before voters.

It simply isn't right to pit the Library against the Police Department. Both are vitally important to the people of Salem. The buildings housing each of these services need to be earthquake-safe. Favoring Police employees over Library staff/visitors was a big part of the reason voters rejected Measure 24-399.

You'll hear Councilor Kaser say in the video, "I've also heard people say, I will not support a a bond -- I do support the police -- if there is not seismic to the Library at the very least."

I feel the same way. It's good that a smaller, less expensive police facility plan will be submitted to voters as a substitute for Measure 24-399, but the absence of seismic retrofitting for City Hall and the Library is a deal breaker for me and many others.

The City Council plans to put a separate Library seismic bond on the November 2017 ballot, but it likely will compete against other local measures such as a school bond. And Councilor Nanke kept emphasizing last night that the City Council can always change its mind, so there is no guarantee that either a Library bond measure will be voted on in November, nor that it would pass.

So I'm recommending a NO vote in May. Then the City Council can do what it should have done last night: approve a police facility proposal that includes funds for at least seismic retrofitting of the Library, and ideally City Hall also.

Again, the lives of EVERYBODY who works at or visits the Civic Center are equally worth saving. Protecting Police Department staff shouldn't be prioritized over the lives of children at StoryTime when the Big One hits.

(4) Resolving to put a bond measure for Library seismic upgrades on the November ballot is a face-saving effort that voters shouldn't be fooled by. If City officials really cared about saving lives at City Hall and the Library when the next Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake hits -- could be tomorrow, because no one knows exactly -- they'd make this a funding priority.

But both seismic upgrades to the Civic Center buildings and routine maintenance/upkeep have been ignored for decades. Now the City of Salem is saying that $44 million is needed to pay for this work.

Note that seismic retrofitting is only about $20 million of the roughly $44 million total. So taxpayers need to hold onto their wallets. They're going to be asked to pay extra for deferred maintenance of City Hall and the Library that should have been part of regular operating budgets over the years.

And more City of Salem bond measures totaling over $300 million are in the works for coming years. Here's a possible schedule for them.

City officials have been letting the Civic Center buildings fall apart because they kept choosing to spend money on other stuff rather than maintaining what taxpayers have already paid for. So if a $15 million bond for "Library seismic upgrades" is put on the November ballot, actually it would include about $7 million for repairs to the building.

And what about fixing City Hall? That's another $29 million, most of which would also go for deferred maintenance and renovations, not seismic upgrades.

So there are good reasons to be skeptical of Mayor Bennett's statement in today's Statesman Journal story: “I hope ... there's a real understanding that no matter what happens with the police facility, the library is going out in November."

For one thing, Councilor Nanke repeatedly pointed out at the Tuesday work session that the City Council could change its mind about a Library bond measure. Politicians change their minds all the time.

For example, on February 13 the City Council voted unanimously to separate consideration of a police facility bond measure from a seismic upgrades bond measure. Yet partway through its February 21 work session the City Council had the above-mentioned 4-4 vote on combining these into a single bond measure, so four councilors changed their minds over eight days. Then, in the same meeting there was a unanimous vote to split the police facility and seismic upgrade bond measures again.

So, yes, the City Council could certainly change its collective mind. City councilors frequently change their individual minds.

The deadline for removing a City of Salem bond measure on the November 2017 ballot is the first part of September, based on a 2016 memo. Thus voters can't be sure that a Library bond measure for seismic upgrades will be on the November ballot until the deadline for removal passes in September.

Further, what if the May $62 million standalone police facility bond measure fails? One plausible scenario is that City officials realize that their best bet now is to do what should have been done before: combine funding for a new police facility and seismic upgrades to City Hall and/or the Library into a single bond measure that would have more appeal to voters.

Since it would be foolhardy to ask voters to approve a third bond measure after just another six months, it would make sense to put a third-try police facility plus seismic upgrades bond on the November 2018 ballot, at the earliest. So even though Mayor Bennett said "no matter what happens with the police facility, the library is going out in November," this might not happen.

Anyway, I've given four reasons I'm opposing the new $62 million police facility plan. I have more reasons, but those can wait for another blog post.

(Can't resist adding... in this age of Twitter, I realize that a 2,500 word blog post such as this one seems outrageously long. Well, I'm old enough to remember when lots of people actually read lengthy articles about important subjects if it took that many words to say what needed to be said. I still subscribe to the New Yorker, as I have for most of my life. If you think this blog post is long, read the New Yorker, which remains a marvelous source of great writing and excellent information.)

February 20, 2017

Here's a little 2,000 + word message, which some might call a rant, that I just emailed to Mayor Bennett, City Manager Powers, Police Chief Moore, city councilors, and other City of Salem officials.

I'm trying to help them understand why what the City Council seems poised to do about a PLAN B for a new Police Department headquarters is the wrong way to go. This is one blunt part of my message:

IMPORTANT: Keep in mind that the John Hawkins-led group, mostly composed of conservatives and “Powers That Be” types, recommended at the previous Council work session that a proposal for a 115,000 square foot police facility AND seismic retrofitting of the Library be put on the May ballot. Similarly, Salem Community Vision has recommended a 115,000 square foot police facility AND seismic retrofitting of both the Library and City Hall.

Further, currently the results of Facebook and Survey Monkey online polls that I publicized on behalf on Salem Community Vision are showing that about 2/3 of respondents favor a plan for the May ballot that includes a 115,000 square foot police facility AND seismic retrofitting of City Hall and/or the Library.

So if the City Council chooses a different plan, citizens will be justified in concluding that City officials are living in a “City Hall bubble” and not listening to the community — since it is clear that conservatives, liberals, and people in-between/other strongly favor a PLAN B police facility proposal that includes seismic retrofitting.

The City Council is meeting tomorrow (Tuesday, February 21, 6 pm) in a work session to discuss police facility options. Hopefully they will do the right thing rather than the wrong thing, but I'm getting increasingly pessimistic this will happen.

Hence, this last-ditch attempt to help the Council realize that the plan they seem to be favoring will encounter strong organized opposition and has a much lower chance of being approved by voters than a plan with broad community support.

Email the City Councilors and other City officials if you agree with what I say at the end of this message: [email protected]

There. I’m done. It took more than 2,000 words to say what I needed to say. Now it is up to City officials, notably including the City Council, to consider what I’ve said — which I believe reflects the view of most people in Salem who are familiar with this issue. Which is...

Pare down the cost of a 115,000 square foot police facility as much as possible to show that you have heard the message from the defeat of Measure 24-399 that the previous plan was too large, too expensive, and cost too much per square foot compared to other recently-built Oregon police facilities.

Include money to seismically retrofit at least the Library to show that you have heard the message that “If it is important to save the lives of Police Department employees when the Big One earthquake hits, it is equally important to save the lives of EVERYONE who works at or visits City Hall and the Library.”

Make an iron-clad commitment to put another bond measure for renovations to City Hall, both seismic and other, on the November 2017 ballot. This measure could include money for deferred maintenance and repairs to the Library that aren’t seismically-related.

------------------------

DATE: February 20, 2017

TO: Mayor Bennett, City Councilors, City Manager Powers, Police Chief Moore, and other City of Salem officials

FROM: Brian Hines

RE: Analysis of the 115,000 square foot police facility proposals from the City of Salem and Salem Community Vision, with the goal of finding common ground and a consensus on a PLAN B May bond measure

I’m submitting this as advance testimony for the February 21 City Council work session on the police facility.

My hope is that these ideas will stimulate some productive thinking and discussion prior to, and at, this meeting, as the work session will be a pivotal moment for the Council as it decides how (and whether) to move forward with a new police facility bond measure plan that could be put before voters in a May 2017 election.

I want to stress that I’m writing this on my own. Yes, I'm a member of the Salem Community Vision steering committee, but this message is personal from me.

I’m also a leader of Salem Can Do Better, which was the organized opposition to Measure 24-399, the original police facility bond measure. Again, this message is personal from me and shouldn’t be taken as a firm sign of how Salem Can Do Better will view a new bond measure.

(As discussed below, that depends on what a new bond measure consists of, which obviously hasn’t been determined yet.)

My central theme is this:

The proposals from the City of Salem and Salem Community Vision for a smaller and less expensive 115,000 square foot police facility really are not all that far apart. Differences between them can be bridged, resulting in a community consensus that would markedly increase the chance of a May PLAN B ballot measure being approved by voters.

Here is the current Salem Community Vision (SCV) proposal, which is a modification of the City of Salem (City) plan prepared by the DLR Group and CB Two architects. I realize that Geoffrey James, an architect on the SCV steering committee, has met with City staff and consultants, and will be talking again with them on Tuesday.Download POLICE+SEISMIC REVISED COST 2 02-13-2017

But since my understanding is that neither SCV nor the City has changed their figures in the document above, my analysis uses those numbers. Which, for a 115,000 square foot police facility alone total to $64 M (million) for the City plan, and $46 M for the SCV plan. I’m rounding to the nearest million, as I will do pretty much throughout this analysis for clarity.

I’ll now work my way step by step through a look at these numbers. Note that at first I’m only talking about a new police facility, not seismic retrofitting of City Hall and/or the Library. That discussion will come later.

(1) There is an $18 M difference between the City and SCV plans ($64 M minus $46 M).

(2) Three budget items account for virtually all of that $18 M difference:

Other budget items such as Fixtures, Furniture, and Equipment basically move up or down with the overall budget; thus they are important, but only account for about half a million of the $18 M difference between the City and SCV plans, essentially a rounding error when the numbers are expressed to the nearest million.

(3) The most contentious issue is the $9 M difference in General Construction. In part this is explained by the SCV plan using a $270 per square foot construction budget target, while the City plan uses a $299 per square foot construction budget target. This $29 difference ($299 minus $270) arises from the City’s claimed additional cost for special program requirements: Crime Lab, SWAT, Special Teams.

As noted above, the construction budget consists of items A + B +C in the image above. This information, plus a cost analysis of the Beaverton facility prepared by City consultants in the middle column of the image below, allows for a construction cost per square foot comparison between the 115,000 square foot City and SCV plans, and the Beaverton plan approved by voters there last November.

The City plan has a construction budget of $40.0 M, which includes an expensive parking structure. This results in a construction cost per square foot for the City plan of$348 ($40 M divided by 115,000 square feet). The SCV plan has a construction budget of $31.2 million. The parking structure is reduced from 100 stalls to 50 stalls This results in a construction cost per square foot forthe SCV plan of $272. The Beaverton plan has a construction budget of $25,300,000. Given the police facility size of 90,000 square feet, this results in a construction cost per square foot for Beaverton of $281.

Note the $67 difference in the square foot construction cost between the City plan and Beaverton. This is much greater than the claimed $29 difference due to Salem’s special program requirements. The parking structure and other additional costs in the City plan are the reason for this.

(4) I’m going to leave aside the question of whether the $29 additional cost per square foot due to “special program requirements” for construction of the police facility in the City plan is justified. Basically, SCV asserts that regardless of these requirements a Salem police facility can be built for about the same construction cost per square foot as a new Beaverton police facility by reducing costs in other budget items — both within the Construction area (such as reducing the size of the parking structure) and in other areas discussed below.

(5) So while the City Council needs to closely look at the $9 M difference in General Construction costs between the City and SCV plans, I want to focus on the “low hanging fruit,” so to speak: theother $9 M difference in Escalation, Contingency, and Development costs.

(6) Seemingly this is a place where the differences between the City and SCV plans can be minimized, if not eliminated. SCV uses the Beaverton figure of 5% for contingency, and reduces escalation from 9.18% to 3.5% by assuming a design-build contract is executed within 6 months. And the SCV reduction in Development assumes a 1% cost reduction (12.75% from 13.75%) by eliminating out-of-state consultants and hiring the Beaverton architect on an hourly basis to advise local architects.

(7) Thus while $9 M of the $18 M difference between the City and SCV police facility plans, the General Construction budget, is rather difficult to reach a consensus on, the $9 M cost reduction in the SCV budget by reducing the cost of Escalation, Contingency, and Development appears to be much easier to reach an agreement on.

(8) For the purpose of this analysis, I now assume that the City budget for a new police facility isreduced by $9 M to $55 M ($64 M minus $9 M). This brings me to the question of seismically retrofitting City Hall and the Library, which is budgeted at $20 M in the SCV plan.

(9) That $20 M is only for actual seismic retrofitting to make these buildings earthquake-safe for people in them when the Big One Cascadia Subduction Zone quake hits, a matter of when, not if. The $44 M in the City budget for renovations to City Hall and the Library includes a lot of money (about $24 M) for repairs, deferred maintenance, and improvements unrelated to seismic retrofitting.

(10) At the February 21 work session I plan to testify about the moral and “political” (using that word in a broad sense) reasons to include seismic retrofitting in a potential May PLAN B police facility bond measure. This would make the measure significantly more likely to pass, since evidence shows that saving lives via seismic retrofitting is desired by most citizens.

(11) Here is where things begin to get tricky, because the SCV plan is $66 M for both a 115,000 square foot police facility ($46 M) and seismic retrofitting of the Library and City Hall ($20 M). Without any cost reduction the City plan would be $84 M for both — $2 M more than the $82 M bond measure rejected by voters.

And even with the above-mentioned $9 M cost police facility cost reduction, the City plan would be $75 M for both ($55 M for the police facility; $20 M for seismic retrofitting).

(12) A new bond measure of either $84 M or $75 M would be uncomfortably close to the $82 M cost that was turned down in the November election.

This is why the $66 M SCV plan is appealing: it gets the total cost into the 60 M range, and it includes an attractive extra that wasn’t part of Measure 24-399: saving the lives of visitors/employees at City Hall and the Library by seismically retrofitting the buildings — which also takes away an argument used against the $82 million bond measure:

“If it is important to save the lives of Police Department staff by having them in an earthquake-safe building, it is equally important to save the lives of everybody who works at or visits City Hall and the Library.”

(13) So the wisest approach would be to submit a $66 M plan to voters that includes money for both a new 115,000 square foot police facility and seismic retrofitting of City Hall and the Library. I feel the SCV plan has the best chance of being approved by voters.

(14) However, the City Council may want to discuss a fallback plan. In that case, here’s a suggestion. Again, I emphasize that this is my personal opinion, not the position of Salem Community Vision or Salem Can Do Better.

(15) Assuming the City plan for a new police facility was reduced from $64 M to $55 M (lower would be better, but I’m assuming just a $9 M reduction), as noted above this would put the cost of a bond measure that included seismic retrofitting of both City Hall and the Library at $75 M ($55 M plus $20 M).

(16) Alternatively, only seismic retrofitting of the Library could be included in a May bond measure. If this is assumed to cost about $10 M (City budget for Library seismic retrofits is $6.5 M), the bond measure would be $65 M ($55 M plus $10 M). This should appeal to voters, since so many people like and use the Library, and the prospect of children at Storytime being crushed to death was used effectively by opponents of the previous bond measure (such as me).

(17) Thus for only $1 M more than the current $64 M City plan for a new 115,000 square foot police facility alone, voters could be presented with a $65 M bond measure that includes money for a police facility AND making the Library earthquake-safe.

(18) The $65 M cost to do this is pleasingly lower than the $79 million cost of the police facility + library renovations option that the City has presented, since it is based on a $9 M reduction in the cost of the police facility and a $5 M reduction in the City’s $15 M budget for Library renovations by excluding items unrelated to seismic retrofitting.

(19) Those other items — repairs, deferred maintenance, and improvements — should be funded outside of a May police facility bond. Including them would muddy the waters of a public safety proposal that consists of money to move the Police Department to a seismically-safe building and also seismically retrofit the Library. (Ideally City Hall also, but Library-only would be the back-up plan.)

(20) City Hall retrofitting is more complicated, so there are decent reasons to postpone asking citizens for money to do this until a November 2017 election. The original City police facility plan (for a building on the Civic Center campus) included funds to both seismically retrofit and remodel City Hall. But that renovation plan would take time to review, update, and get citizen input on.

(21) IMPORTANT: Keep in mind that the John Hawkins-led group, mostly composed of conservatives and “Powers That Be” types recommended at the previous Council work session that a proposal for a 115,000 square foot police facility AND seismic retrofitting of the Library be put on the May ballot. Similarly, Salem Community Vision has recommended a 115,000 square foot police facility AND seismic retrofitting of both the Library and City Hall.

Further, currently the results of Facebook and Survey Monkey online polls that I publicized on behalf on Salem Community Vision are showing that about 2/3 of respondents favor a plan for the May ballot that includes a 115,000 square foot police facility AND seismic retrofitting of City Hall and/or the Library.

(22) So if the City Council chooses a different plan, citizens will be justified in concluding that City officials are living in a “City Hall bubble” and not listening to the community — since it is clear that conservatives, liberals, and people in-between/other strongly favor a PLAN B police facility proposal that includes seismic retrofitting.

Here’s a screenshot of the current Facebook survey results (275 responses so far). The $66 M SCV plan is favored by 54% and 13% favor the $79 M City plan. So over two-thirds, 67%, favor a police facility plan that includes seismic retrofitting of City Hall and/or the Library. The two standalone police facility plans are only favored by 7% of respondents.

(23) Remember that, as I recall, the DHM polling consultant said, prior to the November election, that the $82 million bond measure needed about 60% support prior to the election and would fare best with no organized opposition.

(24) Given the Measure 24-399 results, you’re basically starting out at 48% support. (See screenshot below.) And you’re facing the headwinds of breezes such as “Didn’t we just vote on this?”, “This is still too expensive,” and “I’m so irritated at politicians these days I’m voting no on them wanting more money for anything extra they want to do.”

(25) Also, if the City Council ends up putting a PLAN B bond measure on the May ballot that doesn’t include seismic retrofitting of at least the Library, there WILL be organized opposition to the measure this time also. That’s virtually guaranteed. Because I would do the organizing. I feel strongly that saving lives of employees and visitors to the Civic Center is much more important than, say, padding the police facility budget with excessive Escalation and Contingency costs.

There. I’m done. It took more than 2,000 words to say what I needed to say. Now it is up to City officials, notably including the City Council, to consider what I’ve said — which I believe reflects the view of most people in Salem who are familiar with this issue. Which is...

Pare down the cost of a 115,000 square foot police facility as much as possible to show that you have heard the message from the defeat of Measure 24-399 that the previous plan was too large, too expensive, and cost too much per square foot compared to other recently-built Oregon police facilities.

Include money to seismically retrofit at least the Library to show that you have heard the message that “If it is important to save the lives of Police Department employees when the Big One earthquake hits, it is equally important to save the lives of EVERYONE who works at or visits City Hall and the Library.”

Make an iron-clad commitment to put another bond measure for renovations to City Hall, both seismic and other, on the November 2017 ballot. This measure could include money for deferred maintenance and repairs to the Library that aren’t seismically-related.

I look forward to hearing your discussion at tomorrow’s work session and responding to any questions you might have about this message and the other testimony I’ll be presenting at the work session.

February 16, 2017

Along with my Salem Community Vision colleagues, I'm an avid supporter of the plan SCV released at last Monday's City Council meeting for a new $66 million bond measure that includes $46 million for a 115,000 square foot police facility, plus $20 million for lifesaving seismic retrofitting of City Hall and the Library.

Now, there are other PLAN B options that will be considered by the City Council at a February 21 work session.

There's been quite a bit of talk among some councilors that making City Hall and the Library earthquake-safe shouldn't be part of a new police facility bond measure, because the lack of this seismic retrofitting supposedly wasn't a factor in the defeat of Measure 24-399, the original $82 million bond measure for a 148,000 square foot police facility that was defeated by voters last November.

So an option being considered by these councilors is to put a reduced cost/size police facility plan on the May 2017 ballot, delaying a vote on a bond to seismically retrofit the Civic Center buildings until November 2017.

This would be a big mistake. (I'm so confident about this, I put it in boldface.)

Here's my reasons.

First, I led the fight against Measure 24-399. I wrote all of the "Vote No" materials. I spoke at most of the meetings where the bond measure was debated. I designed a Salem Can Do Better web page. And I handled the Facebook campaign that urged a no vote on the $82 million plan. Thus I have a good feel for what arguments resonated with voters, and which didn't.

People certainly were concerned about the excessive size and cost of the proposed police facility. However, a highly compelling argument used the "pro" campaign's Keep Salem Safe slogan against them.

I'd point out that actually Measure 24-399 only made Police Department employees safer, because they would be moved out of the ground floor of City Hall -- a building that will almost certainly collapse when the next Big One Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake hits (a matter of when, not if) -- into a new police facility built to modern seismic standards.

Then I'd say that other City employees will be moved into the same City Hall space, so they now will be the ones who will be crushed to death under tons of rubble. "If it is important to save the lives of Police Department staff," I'd argue, "it is equally important to save the lives of everybody who works at or visits City Hall and the Library, including children at Storytime."

The Facebook posts I wrote on this theme proved that earthquake safety was a central concern of voters. When I'd write something logical about the excessive cost and size of the police facility, a post would get a Facebook yawn, so to speak. Just a few comments, likes, and shares.

However, if I put up a post about the need to save lives of people at City Hall and the Library by making seismic retrofitting of these buildings part of a public safety/police facility plan, the response would be hugely greater. Here's an example. This is a screenshot of an October 2016 post on my Strange Up Salem Facebook page.

And this is a screenshot of the responses to the post. Only the page administrator, me, can see how many people were contacted both by the "organic" unpaid reach, and the "boosted" paid reach -- which together totaled 19,159 Facebook users on just this post alone, in large part because 91 people shared the post with their Facebook friends.

So I know that making City Hall and the Library earthquake-safe is of great concern to people in Salem. Based on my experience fighting Measure 24-399, I'm convinced that voters were as bothered by the lack of seismic retrofitting for these buildings in the bond measure, as they were bothered by the excessively high cost and size of the $82 million, 148,000 square foot police facility.

Why?

Well, this is a tough question to answer, because the dynamics of human emotions and cognition are still largely a mystery. Why we do what we do, feel as we feel, and think as we think is almost as much of an art as a science.

Researchers are making a lot of headway in understanding how our minds work, though. Clearly, we are not Spock-like highly rational beings who cooly assess arguments and evidence, then make a logical decision. Not about how to vote on a ballot measure. Not about anything.

I've read lots of neuroscience and psychology books about this subject, including Daniel Kahneman's "Thinking, Fast and Slow." Kahneman won the Nobel Prize in Economics for his research into the non-logical, non-quantitative ways we humans view the world and decide what to do. This morning I was reading a chapter in a book by Michael Lewis about Kahneman and his associate, Amos Tversky, "The Undoing Project."

Here's a passage that describes what Kahneman and Tversky set out to undo.

By the summer of 1973, Amos was searching for ways to undo the reigning theory of decision making, just as he and Danny had undone the idea that human judgement followed the precepts of statistical theory. On a trip to Europe with his friend Paul Slovic, he shared his latest thoughts about how to make room, in the world of decision theory, for a messier view of human nature.

Later in the chapter, Lewis describes some experiments where people are asked to choose between two situations that involve different chances of winning various amounts of money. I'll leave out the details of the choices and jump to the conclusions.

Danny [Kahneman] wasn't inclined to see the paradox as a problem of logic. It looked to him like a quirk in human behavior. "I wanted to understand the psychology of what was going on," he said. He sensed that Allais himself hadn't given much thought to why people might choose in a way that violated the major theory of decision making.

But to Danny the reason seemed obvious: regret.

In the first situation people sensed that they would look back on their decision, if it turned out badly, and feel they had screwed up; in the second situation, not so much. Anyone who turned down a certain gift of $5 million would experience far more regret, if he wound up with nothing, than a person who turned down a gamble in which he stood a slight chance of winning $5 million [note: and also a slight chance of winning $25 million].

If people mostly chose option 1, it was because they sensed the special pain they would experience if they chose option 2 and won nothing. Avoiding that pain became a line item on the inner calculation of their expected utility. Regret was the ham in the back of the deli that caused people to switch from turkey to roast beef.

...Happy people did not dwell on some imagined unhappiness the way unhappy people imagined what they might have done differently so that they might be happy. People did not seek to avoid other emotions with the same energy they sought to avoid regret.

When they made decisions, people did not seek to maximize utility. They sought to minimize regret. [emphasis in original]

After I read these passages this morning, I was blown away by how closely this reflected both my own feelings about the Salem police facility plan, and why I believe many voters said "no" to Measure 24-399.

For several years I've testified numerous times at different sorts of hearings about the need to seismically retrofit City Hall and the Library, so I'm more tuned in to this issue than most people. One of my conscious motivations is how much it would bother me if the Big One earthquake hits before these buildings are made earthquake-safe and people inside die, trapped under massive chunks of collapsing rubble.

Knowing of this danger, I would feel massive regret for the rest of my life if I didn't feel that I did everything I could to prevent that from happening. And I'm virtually 100% certain that many voters felt the same way, albeit in their own personal fashion.

Recognizing (because I and others told them) that the City of Salem originally planned to include money to seismically retrofit at least the Library, and maybe also City Hall, in a police facility bond measure, but the seismic upgrades were dropped after the size and cost of the planned police facility doubled, I'm convinced that voters knew that a "yes" vote on Measure 24-399 was an endorsement of leaving people who work in or visit the Civic Center buildings at high risk of dying in the next Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake.

And the same feeling, the same knowledge, will hold true in a May 2017 second-try bond measure election if City officials once again omit money for seismic retrofitting of City Hall and the Library.

Yes, the City Council has talked of putting a police-facility-only bond on the May ballot, and a Civic Center seismic retrofitting bond on the November ballot. But this plan stands a good chance of failing, because of the regret issue.

Lots of people want the Salem Police Department to have a new police facility. Lots of people want City Hall and the Library to be earthquake-safe. It simply makes sense to have all of these people voting "yes" for a bond measure that accomplishes both goals. If seismic retrofitting is put off, the regret card still comes into play.

I and others will think: "There's no guarantee a separate November bond measure for seismic upgrades would pass. And even if it did, this postpones the seismic retrofitting of City Hall and the Library for at least six months. What if the Big One earthquake happens before the retrofitting is completed, like three months before? Then I'll feel a ton of regret that lives were lost because the retrofitting bond measure was put off until November."

I realize that rational counter-arguments can be made to this, using the sort of logic that economists and psychologists used to think prevailed in the human decision-making psyche. But in large part because of Kahneman and Tversky, we now know that emotions such as regret play a large role in why people do what they do and feel as they feel.

So City officials, including city councilors, will be making a mistake if they think arguments such as the following are going to be sufficient to sell a new police facility bond measure to voters.

-- "It only costs the average home owner a few dollars a month."-- "The current Police Department quarters are really crowded and inadequate."-- "Expert consultants told us what the cost should be."

These aren't bad arguments. But proponents of Measure 24-399 had over a hundred thousand dollars to make them last time, and this wasn't enough to entice a majority of voters to say "yes."

This time around, a new police facility ballot measure will be facing these potential headwinds:

-- "Didn't we just vote on this?"-- "What's the rush for another vote?"-- "The cost is still really high."-- "Making the Library and City Hall earthquake safe still isn't included."

I've argued here that the last item, seismic retrofitting of the Civic Center buildings, is a crucial element of a bond measure because it is so emotionally fraught.

Visualizing children dying when the Library collapses in the Big One earthquake is a more potent motivation to vote "no" on a police facility-only bond measure than is an argument that, for example, interview rooms and evidence storage space are inadequate in the current Police Department location.

Many voters, either implicitly or explicitly, can imagine the regret they would feel if they didn't do all they could to make the Library and City Hall earthquake-safe in advance of the Big One quake that is sure to come, the only question being when?

If City officials decide to once again omit seismic retrofitting of the Civic Center buildings from a public safety bond measure where a central rationale for a new police facility is that City Hall is unsafe for Police Department staff to be in, this offers up a potent argument to vote "no" on the measure, just as it did with the previous bond measure.

Lastly, here's a screen shot of the first 115 responses to a Facebook survey I posted yesterday afternoon on behalf of Salem Community Vision. When asked which of four police facility options are most liked, 57% favor a $66 million plan that includes seismic retrofitting of both City Hall and the Library, and 10% favor a $79 million plan that includes seismic retrofitting and other renovations to the Library.

Two standalone options for a police facility only are favored by just 7% of respondents so far. So these early responses are running 11 to 1 in favor of including seismic retrofitting in a new bond measure.

How much does regret play a role in this? Hard to tell. But solid psychological research says, probably quite a bit, whether consciously or unconsciously.